


Accidents Happen

by pyrrhical (anoyo)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, M/M, No Canon Divergence, Soulmate AU, Stiles POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-11-30 20:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11470941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/pyrrhical
Summary: Settling a soul bond was exactly as romantic as the movies made it seem: a simple kiss.As it so happened, CPR worked, too.





	Accidents Happen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PunIntended_Sterek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunIntended_Sterek/gifts).



> To PunIntended_Sterek: I hope you enjoy this!

It wasn’t that they’d missed it. It was-- that they’d missed it. Not out of ignorance or willful denial, but simply because every time they touched, skin-to-skin, someone was bleeding, in shock, cursed, or whatever the monster of the week wound up causing.

A warm, almost burning sensation was pretty typical when you were covered in blood or trying to pull someone out of a magical dream state.

And the rest of the time? They didn’t touch skin to skin. They were both fans of layers, and even with the possibility of a soul bond, no one walked around just touching everyone they met.

Well, some people did, but it was considered rude.

When the touching in question was between Stiles and Derek, it seemed more ill-advised than anything else. Derek was too stuck believing the world had given him straight-up crap, and Stiles was too convinced that Derek would kill him in some uncomfortable way.

(There were comfortable ways to die; Stiles had tested a few, though he had no conclusive evidence. It just seemed that being torn apart wouldn’t be one of them.)

Settling a soul bond was exactly as romantic as the movies made it seem: a simple kiss. 

As it so happened, CPR worked, too.

 

“What the hell, seriously, what the actual hell, how is this always my job?” Stiles muttered, wading into a creek that he was pretty sure hadn’t existed the day before. “Stop trying to drown, Derek, I swear to god, I’m not going to save you next time, shame on me and all that.”

Stiles didn’t know what had happened, but he was pretty sure Derek hadn’t knocked himself out while standing next to a newly-existent creek. It was possible, it just wasn’t likely.

It took him a few moments to drag Derek onto the bank, and a few more moments to notice Derek wasn’t breathing. His heart was beating, slowly, but he wasn’t breathing. Werewolves healed themselves, maybe he just needed a moment.

Like everything he didn’t want to know, it took Stiles’ brain approximately five seconds to conclude that A) Derek didn’t seem to be waking up, B) that was probably bad, and C) if there was water in his lungs, they could heal all they wanted, he’d just keep drowning repeatedly until his body couldn’t heal anymore.

That wasn’t going to make Stiles’ list of comfortable ways to die.

“Well, crap, seriously, why is no one else here, why is it always me, are we magnetized to get drawn together every time one of us is dying? Because I’d like that removed, thanks,” Stiles muttered, moving Derek into a position that he thought was what he’d been taught in his CPR/AED certification class.

(He’d taken it because, you know, the frequent almost-dying sort of made it a helpful skill. Note object lesson one: Derek drowning.)

“If you wake up,” Stiles said, waving his hand at Derek, “please don’t kill me, because this is for your own good, you obnoxious freaking mook.” He put two fingers under Derek’s chin and lifted, ignoring the static shock he’d felt, and focusing on actually doing this correctly.

It took two full sets of compressions and breathing for Derek to finally roll over and practically vomit water.

“Oh, good,” Stiles said, patting Derek on his leather-covered shoulder. “You didn’t drown. Hurrah and all that and seriously, Derek, where did this creek come from?”

Stiles stood and wandered to the edge of the creek, then bent and ran his fingers through the water. He could feel Derek pushing himself onto his feet behind him, a looming presence of menace and confusion.

That was new. Stiles hadn’t known Derek could radiate confusion, but hey, what was yet another werewolf superpower?

“I don’t know,” Derek answered, picking at his soaked shirt. “I was running and suddenly it was there.”

“So you decided to take a swim?”

“So I slipped on a wet stone that appeared underneath my foot,” Derek said, annoyed enough that Stiles could feel that, too.

“Graceful,” Stiles commented, grinning. “Whatever, magical creek, sure, we can have one of those.” He shrugged. “Where’s everyone else?”

“I can only hear Scott. He sounds like he’s at the house,” Derek answered.

“Well, house it is, then.”

“Why don’t you call him?” Derek asked.

“Because one of the crazy tree people took it and crushed it, and I’m pretty sure your phone is a waterlogged brick at this point.” Stiles turned and grinned at Derek, who was pulling his phone out to check.

Derek grunted in the affirmative and Stiles pushed himself to his feet.

“So, we walk,” Stiles said, gesturing in the direction he sincerely hoped the house would be.

Derek shifted his arm about 110 degrees. So much for that. The amusement practically wafted off of him.

The amusement? Stiles turned to look at Derek’s face, which was as pissy and pinched as ever. “How do I know you’re secretly amused?” Stiles asked, crossing his arms.

“I don’t know,” Derek said, raising an eyebrow. “Who says I’m amused?”

“My brain,” Stiles replied, then paused. “I mean, not my brain on its own, right, because it doesn’t have an independent functioning capacity, but me on behalf of conclusions made by my brain.”

Derek still felt amused.

“Dude, I thought you hated it when I rambled, why is this so funny? Do you have the almost-dying yips or something? You never have before. And it’s sad, really, that I have enough instances of you almost dying to compare to this one. I could create an actual dataset, I have so many field conclusions.”

Derek had shifted to two parts amused, one part annoyed. At least part of that was normal. “I do hate it when you ramble,” Derek said, glaring at him.

“But you _don’t_ ,” Stiles said. “I can tell. How can I tell?”

Derek side-eyed him, then let out a breath. (He felt confused, resigned, and more than a little panicked. Stiles didn’t like it.) “Think really hard about a color. Only one color.”

“A color? What does that have to do with anything?” Stiles asked. When Derek only glared, Stiles shrugged. “Okay, sure, fine. I’m thinking of a color.”

“No, you’re not,” Derek said, a few moments later.

Stiles shrugged. “I was, really. I just got distracted.”

“You’re a lot of work,” Derek said, dragging a hand across his face.

“So I’ve been told,” Stiles replied. “Why this time?”

“Just think of a color, Stiles. If you need to wander around in your head, stick to things that are that color, or at least associated.”

(Annoyed, amused, resigned, but considerably less panicked.) “Yeah, sure, trying again,” Stiles said, closing his eyes this time. If Derek had planned on killing him for the CPR, he probably would have done it already.

“Pine is not a color,” Derek said, rubbing his hand over his face again.

“Sure it is,” Stiles said. “You can see it, it’s distinctive, it’s a color.” (Annoyed, amused, incredibly resigned.) Pine was totally a color. There had to be a patented Crayola pine color if he looked hard enough. Oh. Wait. “What just happened,” Stiles said, not a question but a statement of very concerned fact. Stiles had that down to an art.

Derek crossed his arms. “You’re an idiot,” he said blankly. “Did you kiss me?”

“What? No! What? When the hell would I have done that? While you were unconscious? That’s, like, non-consensual liplock!” Stiles paused. “I mean, I did give you CPR, but I thought the consent to that was probably implied, because you were dying.”

“Apparently that’s enough,” Derek said, uncrossing his arms and sticking his hands in his coat pockets. How that was comfortable with a slowly-drying leather jacket, Stiles would never know.

“Enough for what?” Stiles asked. His brain was making some sort of strange honking noise that Stiles was ignoring in favor of the rattling static of denial.

Derek just continued to stare at him.

“Seriously? Wouldn’t we have noticed, I don’t know, _before_? Like, in any of the hundred situations where we’ve been--” He paused. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, I can see why not.” Stiles glanced at Derek. “Well, this is new and different.”

“Apparently not new,” Derek muttered, rolling his eyes. 

“But how are you _sure_? I mean, those tree people could have done something crazy and just made us temporarily and inconveniently psychic? Like those fairies did to Scott and Isaac?” 

Derek rolled his eyes again, which had to be -- (annoyed, amused, fond, what, _fond_ ) -- incredibly uncomfortable to do so often, why on earth didn’t he need glasses? Before Stiles could go further down the rabbit hole of “I don’t want to think about this,” Derek had kissed him.

And that was, well, that was probably what that was supposed to feel like, yeah. Warm and comforting and natural; all sorts of things Stiles aggressively didn’t associate with Derek. That really only left one option.

“Oh,” Stiles said.

“Yes, oh,” Derek agreed, then turned in the direction of the house. “Let’s go find Scott.”

“We aren’t going to, I don’t know, talk about this and how ridiculous and weird and entirely out of left field it is?” Stiles asked, feet following Derek all on their own.

“No,” Derek answered.

(Annoyed, amused, fond, nervous.) “Fair enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> This meets my poor communication skills square in Trope Bingo.


End file.
